How Bad Is Nate Robertson?
By Blake VandeBunte • Aug 4th, 2008 • Category: 2008 season, Mike Maroth, Nate Robertson
If you’ve seen Nate Robertson pitch this season you’ve asked yourself that question. Robertson is one of the more likeable guys on the roster but he has been flat awful this season. Roberston is well liked because he chooses to live in Detroit. Most other Detroit athletes choose to live in the suburbs, Nate lives in Detroit and gets bonus points for that. He’s been with the Tigers longer than most everyone else on the current roster. Too bad he’s sucked this season.
It’s one thing to sit around and say “Nate sucks” or “I bet he’s the worst starter in the league”, it’s another thing to get some stats to back it all up and tie it in a nice little bow. That’s what I intend to do here. I want to prove, using his stats, that Nate is one of the worst starting pitchers in all of baseball. Usually when a team keeps running out someone every five days who is awful, the team isn’t that good either. It’s a really crappy game of connect the dots.
Currently, 94 players in baseball qualify for the ERA title. Nate ranks 93rd in that category and is dead last in the American League. Only Ian Snell of the Pirates has a worse ERA. Robertson checks in at an awful 6.06 while poor Mr. Snell is at 6.14. However, Ian Snell is 26 years old and makes a touch over $400,000 for the terrible Pittsburgh Pirates. Nate is 30 (should be his prime) and is making ten times as much as Ian Snell, all of this while playing for what should be a contending ball club.
ERA not cutting it for you? How about WHIP? WHIP (Walks+Hits/Innings Pitched) tells us how many baserunners per inning a pitcher allows. Dan Haren of the Diamondbacks leads big league starters in this stat with a mark of 0.96, less than a runner per inning. Pretty nice. Armando Galarraga is ninth in all of baseball at 1.13. Of the 94 starters qualified here, Nate fares a bit better at 90th in all of baseball with a mark of 1.60. Don’t fret though, he’s second to last in all of the American League, Livan Hernandez is at 1.63. However, Hernandez was just released by the Twins so Nate should move to last place in no time.
Maybe his WHIP is high because he gives up a lot of walks and singles? Maybe he’s not getting hit that hard for extra bases? Those are the naive questions of the optimist. If you look at the total bases (1 for a single, 2 for a double, etc…) Nate has the third worst total in baseball. Ahead of the aforementioned Livan Hernandez and Carlos Silva of the Mariners. Nate has allowed 262 total bases this season. For the sake of comparison John Danks of the White Sox has allowed only 187 total bases and has thrown three more innings than Nate. When that many guys are getting on bases you just aren’t getting your job done.
There is a cool stat, easily available at baseball reference.com called ERA+. ERA+ take all factors into account and gives you a number to tell you how a pitcher compares to everyone else in baseball. It’s cool because it accounts for stadium factors, some luck, and just about everything in between to tell you how a pitcher is compared to the league average performer. A pitcher with an ERA+ of 100 is perfectly average. Below 100 is bad, above 100 is good, pretty easy. Nate’s ERA+ this season is 70. WAY below average, I know. The only pitchers with worse marks (min. 100 innings) are Silva and Snell. Silva and Snell pitch for two of the worst teams in baseball, the Mariners and the Pirates.
This is going to be hard to believe but it’s true. According to baseball reference, no Tiger pitcher has ever had an ERA+ as low as Nate’s at the end of a season and qualified for the ERA title. In other words, if Nate isn’t yanked from the rotation soon or see his performance increase, he will have the worst season by a Tigers starter in the history of the franchise. These stats are all relative of course. While some Tigers have finished the season with a higher ERA it may have been during an offensive boom (the 1920’s or 1990’s). During Mike Maroth’s disastrous 2003 season in which he lost 21 games, he had an ERA+ of 75. Joe Coleman is currently the low water mark for his performance in 1975 (ERA+ of 72). Coleman went 10-18 and had an ERA of 5.55.
If you’re not much for stats then this post didn’t prove much to you. However, if you put any stock into statistics at all this has to be a real eye-opener. The old school types may say that Nate takes his turn every five days and eats up innings but the fact of the matter is the Tigers would be better off starting a minor leaguer in his place. He’s been historically bad this season.
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Blake VandeBunte is a posting fiend.
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Ya, Nate has been a big disappointment. He shows glimpses of great pitching, then comes out his next start and looks horrid. After a few years of this, I no longer think he’s ever going to be consistent.
Also, I believe he lives in Canton. So not in Detroit, though most all other players live nowhere near Detroit.
I think over his last 3-5 starts he has been even worse then his season stats. This is just my observations. I haven’t looked into anything. Maybe he has a tired arm again. He seems to get that every year. I know that one thing isn’t tired….the oponents bats. They are very much alive.
I thought Robertson led some parade in Detroit last season because he lived in Detroit? Oh well.
I really think Robertson’s been off all season. Which then doesn’t mean he’s just had a cold streak, it means he might be “figured out” by the opposition.
Nate’s WHIP is 1.60, but Kenny Rogers’ is at 1.57! I think the biggest difference is the HR/9- Nate is at 1.48 (Kenny is at 0.93). Other than that Nate strikes out more and walks fewer than Kenny.
But who are we kidding? If the line up wasn’t scoring over 5 runs/ game where would the Tigers be right now? Chasing KC, that’s where.
Joe, that’s true, Nate hasn’t been the only Tiger who has struggled this season. Sure Kenny and Nate have comparable WHIPs but I think it’s pretty clear that Nate has thrown much worse this season. It’s also a bummer since Nate is more than a decade younger than Kenny.